


This Is How I Love You

by annetheseamaiden



Category: The Sunne in Splendour - Sharon Kay Penman, The White Queen (TV)
Genre: F/M, pure nasty fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 14:44:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4104700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annetheseamaiden/pseuds/annetheseamaiden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anne comes to term when it comes to saying "I love you" to Richard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is How I Love You

Usually it was the female sex who dreamt of happy endings. Usually females dreamt of having the man of their dreams getting on one knee, asking them to spend the rest of their lives together. Then there was also the big, white, fancy wedding. The groom maybe tearing up a little, and she looking like his moon, but that wasn’t Anne Neville.  

Anne Neville dreamt of those things when she was a little girl. She dreamt of the big white dress, but as she grew up she stopped thinking about those things. Maybe it was because her Mother and Father both worked as divorce lawyers. She grew up hearing about terminations, clauses,fillings, agreements, alimony, affidavits, custody battles, defendants . . . why bother if it never lasts?

Then there was Richard York. It was the opposite of her. He wanted to get on one knee and pop open a little box with a ring inside. He wanted a big, white, fancy wedding. He wanted to be the groom that teared up when he was looking at his bride, that was Richard York.

It was really odd that these two people found each other. Anne having commitment issues, and Richard wanting to jump to them. It was odd that these two were together, and were madly in love. 

Anne could not say it, but it was obvious. She would smile whenever he said that he was happy. It made her smile to hear that she made someone happy, and whenever he told her that what he felt for her was love, Anne could not help it but to kiss him.

After almost two years of dating, Richard had already realized that when she looked down and smiled it was that she was happy, but when she was looking at him, smiling and then leaning to him for a kiss, he knew that it meant that it was her way to say that she loved him.

It was okay. At least for him. He knew that Anne was like a castle. She was like a labyrinth and he was okay with it. He was in love with her, and he fell in love with all that it was her.

***

It was a Saturday afternoon when Richard saw her in bed. She was still wearing her pajamas, curled up and her little dog besides her.

“Good Afternoon!” He said as he opened her windows. “I brought heat, cold pads, ibuprofen, and the thing that smells like old people.”

“My hero!” Anne groaned, “I cannot move. I can’t stand up. I am sore. My back hurts and it is really painful.”

“Well, I am here now pumpkin. I brought you a hamburger also. Greasy and with a diet soda.”

“Oh don’t make me laugh!” Anne winced, “You will make me discover new muscles. I have discovered new muscles in my abdomen that I didn’t know I had. I will never go hiking again. I can’t. I will not hike or will zumba. The only excersize that I will get will be from the treadmill.”

“Or me.” Richard winked, “So what do you want now? The heat pad right? Whenever I pull a muscles, you know like when I was playing catch with Ned’s girls last week? The heat pad really did work.”

“Then the heat one.” Anne sighed closing her eyes, “I trust you.”

“Then turnover, lovely. But drink this first.” Richard said giving her a couple of pills. “And then I’ll give you a body massage that will make you feel better, okay. I promise you that baby. You wont be sore after I am done with you.”

Anne could not help it but to cry a little bit when she laughed. It was usually the thing that she may hear from him at times. 

“Oh stop it!” Richard laughed, “Turn around. I’ll feed you when I am done with the massage session I have planned for you.”

“I need it! You do not know how I much hated it. The pain is worst.”

Richard leaned over to give her a little kiss in her forehead she turned around and he spread the lotion on her back. “Do you like it? Do you want me to go faster?”

“Slower.” Anne winced, “It hurts.”

“What exactly happened?” Richard asked. “When I spoke on the phone with you yesterday all I heard was moaning and ‘Richard, I hate hiking’ and telling me that you didn’t want me to come over.”

“They were going too fast.” Anne sighed, “They were like really fast and I was behind them, struggling. I fell once,but neither did Bella or George saw me. I quickly stood up. I fell on my butt, Richard, on a boulder and I think I have a bruise on my left butt cheek, or maybe both. The I stood up on an ant hill, but I was close to the river so I got most of them off. They are skilled hikers and I was the novice who was trying to keep up with them. You should have come with me.”

“Then I would be like you. I prefer to stay at home and do my exercise at the gym.”

“I hurt, Richard. I itch too. I will never go hiking again in my life.”

“My poor little baby!” Richard laughed as he hugged her, “You can just say no next time and we could go to walk on the park instead. What do you think about that?”

“I like it.” Anne laughed, “I really do.”

“You know I love you right?” Richard asked her.

“I do!” Anne said.

“Do you love me too?” Richard asked her.

“You know I do.” Anne said wanting togive him a kiss.

“Can I hear you say it?” Richard asked. “Only just once?”

Anne looked at him not understanding why he was asking for this. He knew what she thoughts of saying those words.

“Richard please!”

“I’ll be the happiest man with just one whisper. Whisper it to me, whisper that you love me and I’ll resume to you back rubbing.”

“It wont mean the same. You are asking me to say it, and if I want to say it, I’ll say it because I want to. I’ll say it when I feel like saying it.”

“Still do not understand.” Richard said, “But I wont push you because I know that you love me. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“I love you. I just don’t like to say a lot because it loses meaning. It is like saying your name 200 times in a row and it just becomes syllables.” Anne explained, “And besides, once you say it, everytime you say it, it becomes real you know. I’ve had bad experiences, and you are too special for that.” Anne continued, “If I dont say it, it wont get ruined.” Anne said, “ I prefer to make you feel loved than to constantly say it.I am not saying that I don’t believe you when you say it, because I actually do. Is just that personally, I prefer not to. I prefer to live by showing you a lifetime of my love, than to actually saying that I love you. Which one would you prefer, a day of me telling you that I love you, in which you can sense it and see it, or a lifetime of feeling it?”

“When you put it like that,” Richard said, “I prefer the second one.”

“I just want those words to be special, you know. Remain special, Richard; and besides if I don’t say _it,_ I wont jinx _it_!” Anne said in a singing tone.

“You couldn’t jinx it.” Richard said, “It would be impossible. And even if you did, Ms. Neville, if you were to jinx this little, big, crazy, sane, beautiful thing that we have, I would be glad. I wouldn’t be glad because you jinxed it. I mean, I don’t believe in that. I just think that it experience what we have is a very special and beautiful thing.”

“Don’t say things like that.” Anne rolled her eyes.

“Well Anne, I am sorry. You’ll be hearing that from me a lot because I love being in love with you. It is probably the only thing that I am sure of. I mean besides my gorgeous hair.” Richard laughed.

It was typical of Richard to finish a conversation with something like that; a joke or something that would throw all the seriousness out of the conversation. She enjoyed that because at times it could be hard for her to easily shift from point A to point B.

“Do you still hurt?” Richard asked her.“Do your legs hurt? Do you want a really mind blowing foot massage?”

Anne looked at him while she nodded feeling her eyes get wet. She felt a little bit guilty, and self-conscious.

“Don’t say it, now!” Richard said looking at her.

“Okay.” 

Anne nodded while he rubbed her foot.

“Good.” He said.

“But I love you.”

Richard wished that he could have held in his laughter, but he couldn’t, and when he came back to his senses, he was crawling towards her and giving her kisses, getting on top of her to hug her, and unintentionally making her remember that it hurt because she was sore.

“You do not know how happy it makes me hear you saying that to me. I am the happiest man.” Richard said as he pressed his forehead against hers.

Anne looked at him while she smiled at him, and softly stroke his face. She closed her eyes feeling shy, embarrassed and in love.

“I think that we are going to be really happy together.” Richard said, “I think we are, and if we are not, I may be bitter and hate you for a time, but on the long run, I’ll be happy that I experienced this beautiful thing with you.”

“You know,” Anne started, “growing up and hearing about divorce, alimony, and you know, all of that. It killed every romantic bone in my body, but I think that you may nurture it back, and slowly make me be like that again.”

“Really Anne?”

“Yes.” Anne chuckled, “I know it is corny, but I just—”

“Anne,” Richard said interrupting her, “would you consider marrying me? Someday?”

“Richard!” Anne cried out loud.

Instantly regretting being caught up in the moment.

“Oh I am sorry!” He gasped while Anne laughed, “I just– ignore me. I doesn’t— I didn’t know what I was thinking. I just — I got caught up in the moment. You know how I am. Just dismiss it, okay?”

“Okay.” Anne nodded. 

“Good!” Richard nodded at her, “Please.”

“But I might—”

“Anne just hush it!”

“You do not tell me what to do, mister.”

“Just . . . don’t. I am sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Well, I know it is weird for this to come from me, you know. But I think I may consider it. It you keep nurturing me with your romance, and how you cry at the end of Love Story, andyou got really sentimental too when you watch Toy Story with your baby nieces and you said that it was because “you were mad at Mandy—”

“Andy.” Richard corrected her, “It was Andy, and he should have kept the toys so his kids could play with them. That would have made Buzz, Woody, and Jessie his children’s grandtoys. You know like grandparents?”

“You are suck a sentimental creature.” Anne said, “Maybe you should give some of them to me.”

“He should have kept them.” Richard said, “Like if I had kids, and I still my old toys on my Mom’s attic, I would give them to them.” Richard said shaking his head, “He should have kept them. It would have been a legacy for his–”

“Oh hush it!” Anne said as she took hold of Richard’s jaw, softly stroking him.

“But if we had kids,” Richard started, “a little girl who turned out to be a lot like you and she drew a housedoll that looked pretty much like the one you had. Wouldn’t you be like a little bit a disappointed?”

“Well, you could make it. I mean, you are pretty handy with your hands, and you are like always creating new things so I think you wouldn’t disappoint our hypothetical daughter.”

“I know you wouldn’t.”

Richard smiled feeling proud. He would do that. It was actually now on his bucket list. “Our hypothetical daughter would have your pretty little face, and I don’t like it when you pout. I’ll would make her a three story house with an elevator and use glitter for the teenage girl’s room.” Richard said before taking a deep breath, “Your massage.” Richard remembered, “Let’s get you feel more comfortable. What do you think?”

“That I love you. That is what I think!”

 


End file.
